A Blast to the Past
by thecrimsonmonarch
Summary: Why was Voldemort gone for more than a decade after his defeat at Harry Potter's one-year-old hands? Surely it didn't take the supposedly brilliant Dark Lord that long to recover? ... Did it? [HP/TMR, Dark Harry, Time Travel, Necromancy]
1. Chapter 1

**Summary**: Why was Voldemort gone for more than a decade after his defeat at Harry Potter's one-year-old hands?

Surely it didn't take the supposedly brilliant Dark Lord that long to recover?

Did it?

**Disclaimer**: HP is JK Rowling's.

This chapter is directly copied from Chapter 17 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Aside from the bit of tweaking I did at the end, I have left everything as it is, word for word.

**Warning**: M for slash (HP/TMR), Dark Harry, Time Travel, Necromancy

* * *

><p>The night wet and windy, two children dressed as pumpkins waddling across the square, and the shop windows covered in paper spiders, all the tawdry Muggle trappings of a world in which they did not believe … and he was gliding along, that sense of purpose and power and rightness in him that he always knew on these occasions … not anger … that was for weaker souls than he … but triumph, yes … he had waited for this, he had hoped for it …<p>

'Nice costume, Mister!'

He saw the small boy's smile falter as he ran near enough to see beneath the hood of the cloak, saw the fear cloud his painted face: then the child turned and ran away … beneath the robe he fingered the handle of his wand … one simple movement and the child would never reach his mother … but unnecessary, quite unnecessary …

And along a new and darker street he moved, and now his destination was in sight at last, the Fidelius Charm broken, though they did not know it yet … and he made less noise than the dead leaves slithering along the pavement as he drew level with the dark hedge, and stared over it …

They had not drawn the curtains, he saw them quite clearly in their little sitting room, the tall, black-haired man in his glasses, making puffs of coloured smoke erupt from his wand for the amusement of the small black-haired boy in his blue pyjamas. The child was laughing and trying to catch the smoke, to grab it in his small fist …

A door opened and the mother entered, saying words he could not hear, her long, dark red hair falling over her face. Now the father scooped up the son and handed him to the mother. He threw his wand down upon the sofa and stretched, yawning …

The gate creaked a little as he pushed it open, but James Potter did not hear. His white hand pulled out the wand beneath his cloak and pointed it at the door, which burst open.

He was over the threshold as James came sprinting into the hall. It was easy, too easy, he had not even picked up his wand …

'Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off –'

Hold him off, without a wand in his hand! … He laughed before casting the curse …

_'Avada Kedavra!'_

The green light filled the cramped hallway, it lit the pram pushed against the wall, it made the banisters glare like lightning rods, and James Potter fell like a marionette whose strings were cut …

He could hear her screaming from the upper floor, trapped, but as long as she was sensible she, at least, had nothing to fear … he climbed the steps, listening with faint amusement to her attempts to barricade herself in … she had no wand upon her either … how stupid they were, and how trusting, thinking that their safety lay in friends, that weapons could be discarded even for moments …

He forced the door open, cast aside the chair and boxes hastily piled against it with one lazy wave of his wand … and there she stood, the child in her arms. At the sight of him, she dropped her son into the cot behind her and threw her arms wide, as if this would help, as if in shielding him from sight she hoped to be chosen instead …

'Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!'

'Stand aside, you silly girl … stand aside, now …'

'Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead –'

'This is my last warning –'

'Not Harry! Please … have mercy … have mercy … Not Harry! Not Harry! Please – I'll do anything –'

'Stand aside – stand aside, girl –'

He could have forced her away from the cot, but it seemed more prudent to finish them all …

The green light flashed around the room and she dropped like her husband. The child had not cried all this time: he could stand, clutching the bars of his cot, and he looked up into the intruder's face with a kind of bright interest, perhaps thinking that it was his father who hid beneath the cloak, making more pretty lights, and his mother would pop up any moment, laughing –

He pointed the wand very carefully into the boy's face: he wanted to see it happen, the destruction of this one, inexplicable danger. He wanted to see the child's face at the sudden realization that no, it was not his father underneath the cloak. He stood directly in front of the crib and let the boy peer into his cowl.

The hunter finally had his prey.

Crimson locked on green eyes that ironically, or perhaps fittingly, were the same shade of the curse on the tip of his tongue. He waited for the child's wail for dramatic effect, but it didn't come. The child just stared unblinkingly at him. He did not like that.

_'Avada Kedavra!'_

And then he broke: he was nothing, nothing but pain and terror, and he must hide himself, not here in the rubble of the ruined house, where the child was trapped, but far away … far away …

Lord Voldemort was not aware of it at that time, but that was the moment the hunter became the hunted.

In fact, he never was the hunter to begin with.


	2. Chapter 2

Pained, gut-wrenching, animalistic screams suddenly filled the cold, night air. Everyone nearby with even the slightest shred of self-preservation would have run away as fast as they can…

...Or not. One might have had a death wish. The cloaked stranger approached the writhing creature that literally appeared out of thin air.

"Shhhh!" he attempted to hush the screaming man.

The "man," if you could still even call him that, was convulsing in the middle of a grassy field. The greenery around him withered at an alarming rate and the dead patch seemed to spread even wider with every second. His skin looked like it was melting off his bones and his black robe was smoking. He made no indication that he was even aware of the presence silencing him.

The hooded figure sighed and produced a short, polished stick.

"_Stupefy_."

That seemed to get the other man's attention. He snapped his head to the side and looked up at the person who muttered the word. Before the beam of red light could hit him, his deteriorating sight detected two indecipherable blobs of a familiar green glow. It meant something, he knew it did. But he was finding it hard to think, to breathe, to _exist_. The pain was simply too much and before another torrent of screams could come out of his melted, disfigured mouth, his vision went black.

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><p>Voldemort opened his eyes with difficulty. The first thing he saw was the dark, wooden ceiling.<p>

_'What..._ _happened?'_

His whole body ached and it felt like his mouth was filled with sand.

The last thing he remembered was...

_'Halloweenchildrendeathsmokelaughtergreen-'_

... was... yes, the Potters... He was about to kill the boy but...

_'Killmercynotharryeyeschildgreen-'_

... the curse...

_'Greengreengreen-'_

For some inexplicable reason, it had _backfired..._

_'GreengreengreengreengreengreenAVADAKEDAVRA-'_

A sharp pang of pain shot through his head. He tightly clenched his jaw, bottling the screams that were threatening to pour out of him. His hands fisted into the sheets at his sides, his toes curled in agony, his back arched, he swore his head was going to explode-

_'Die! Demon-child!' jeered the older children as they kicked the smaller boy._

His head was going to explode-

_'He's not normal,' murmured the scared woman to her husband, unaware of the little boy that had been listening in on their conversation._

_His head was going to explode-_

_Nononononononotoomuch_

He can't breathe. On instinct, he tried to trap everything behind occlumency shields. But he was weak-

_'Boohoo, weak wittle Tommykins can't even pwotect his pwecious pet. Weak Tommykins, weak Tommykins-'_

-and his pathetic attempt easily crumbled like dust. All he could do was to helplessly wait for the pain to subside on its own.

One, two, three, four, five, six, _seven_.

The pain, the visions... slowly, slowly, vanishing...

One, two, three, four, five, six, _seven_.

_Gone._

His body relaxed and the ringing in his ears ceased. His chest constricted and he took ragged breaths. He hadn't even realized that he had stopped breathing.

One, two, three, four, five, six, _seven_.

He closed his eyes and waited for his heart rate to return to normal. Once it did, he sat up.

On the nightstand to his right was a glass of water. His hand struck out on its own and curled around the cold glass. He eagerly gulped the chilly water and it went down his parched throat like a comforting caress. A few drops dribbled down the corner of his mouth in his haste. He wiped them off with the back of his hand and he stiffened. He had felt something.

He held his face and confirmed that he wasn't imagining things.

Lips. _And _a nose. His hands flew to his head and tugged at long, silky hair.

The Dark Lord was instantly alert.

He looked around the small, windowless room and saw no sign of his wand. He stood up and the white blanket that had covered him previously slid down his frame and exposed naked flesh.

He had no wand, no clothes, and no _idea_ as to where he was, much less what was happening. For the first time in years, he felt nervous. He felt like a cornered animal. Vulnerable and _clueless_.

Clueless...

Was he really?

He _may_ be vulnerable at the moment... but was he completely, _entirely_ clueless?

When he woke up, he wasn't tied up, so it was reasonable for him to assume that he wasn't a prisoner.

That small bit of information had to suffice for now.

He bent down to grab the blanket at his feet and wrapped it around his hips. He refused to hug the white sheets around him like a scared, little kid. And as humiliating as it was to wear _this_, he wasn't _stupid_. He sneered at the thought. He knew he was currently too _frail_, knew his magical core was too drained. He wouldn't waste what little of precious magic he currently had just to drape himself in his preferred black robes, no matter how tempting the idea was. He wasn't sure if he could do it anyway.

He made sure the blanket was secure around his hips before he walked towards the door and turned the knob. It swung open without any problems and that just solidified his not-a-prisoner-and-at-liberty-to-explore theory.

The hallway that greeted him was so unlike the drab room he stepped out of that he had to glance back to make sure he hadn't apparated to a different place altogether. The green expanse of the wall stretched indefinitely on both left and right sides.

Most people would go right, because it was _right_. _He_ turned left. This childish fixation could be a weakness, he was aware. It made him predictable. But, quite frankly, the ambidextrous Dark Lord didn't really care.

On the way to who knows where, his eyes had adjusted to the darkness. He could see more than the green walls and occasional empty stands and spied a few tapestries above. He slowed his pace as he studied the pieces of art but his stride never wavered until he passed a suit of armor. The suit didn't bother him per se, but what he _saw_ on its surface made his blood go cold. He knew that he had his old body back, and _old_ he expected it to be. But his reflection told him otherwise. Sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle's face, gaunt and pale, almost glowed in stark contrast with the darkness. Gone were the crimson, snake-like eyes. In their place were the once-familiar grey ones that he had already come to forget.

A sound pierced through his thoughts and tore his attention away from the shiny metal. The faint trickle of music tugged at him and he continued on his investigation without a backward glance at the suit of armor.

He didn't see the way its empty helm rotated and followed his retreating form with non-existent eyes.


End file.
